Club Q shooter pleads guilty to murder charge
Club Q shooting suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich appeared in court in Colorado on Monday, where he pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder charges, and pleaded no contest to felony and misdemeanor charges of bias-motivated crimes.
Anderson Lee Aldridge, who is serving a life sentence for killing five people and wounding 19 others in a shooting at an LGBTQ+ club. Colorado Springs in 2022pleaded guilty to additional hate crime and gun charges on Tuesday after new evidence emerged of anti-gay slurs and weapons purchases.
He refused to apologize in court or say anything to the victims’ families, the Associated Press reports.
Aldrich, who identifies as nonbinary and prefers to refer to themselves using they/them pronouns, pleaded guilty to 50 federal hate crimes and gun-related charges to avoid the death penalty as part of an agreement between defense attorneys and prosecutors.
Instead, prosecutors have recommended that Aldrich be sentenced to life in prison for each hate crime count, as well as 190 years for the gun charges, according to the outlet.
In this image taken from video provided by the Colorado Judicial Branch, Anderson Lee Aldrich (left), the suspect in the 2022 mass shooting that killed five people at Club Q in Colorado Springs, appears in court on June 23, 2023. (Colorado Judicial Branch via AP)
As part of the agreement, Aldrich agreed to present evidence of the hate crime on Tuesday.
“It’s important for the government to acknowledge that these were hate crimes, and it’s also important for the community of Club Q,” prosecutor Alison Connotti said, according to the AP.
On Tuesday, Connotti said Club Q was “a special gathering place for people who needed community and who needed a safe space.” He added that prosecutors had “met with people who said ‘this venue saved my life and I was able to feel normal again.'”
Now U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney, the first openly gay federal judge in Colorado, will decide whether to accept the sentencing agreement.
Though Aldrich did not comment, his attorney, David Kraut, said there was no single reason his client carried out the shooting. Kraut said Tuesday that childhood trauma, a sometimes abusive mother, online extremism, drug use and access to guns were factors that “combined to increase Anderson’s risk of engaging in extreme violence.”
Aldrich, 24, pleaded guilty last year to five counts of first-degree murder, 46 counts of second-degree murder and hate crime Fox News Digital previously reported that charges would be filed in a Colorado court for the shooting at Club Q in November 2022.
Now, federal prosecutors have made the case that Aldrich’s attack on the LGBTQ+ club was premeditated and motivated by bias.
Prosecutors wrote in recent court filings reviewed by the AP that Aldrich coordinated a spam email campaign against a former work supervisor who is gay. They also accused Aldrich of disseminating another man’s racist and anti-Semitic manifesto that said being transgender is a mental illness.
Prosecutors said Aldrich owned a rainbow-ringed target riddled with bullets and shared recordings of 911 calls related to the Pulse nightclub shooting that killed 49 people in 2016.
Prosecutors claim new evidence allegedly shows Aldrich spent more than $9,000 on weapons and accessories from at least 56 vendors between September 2020 and the 2022 attack.
Colorado Club Q shooter pleads guilty to new federal hate crime, gun charges to avoid death penalty
Tributes are paid to the victims of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub on the side of a downtown commercial building in Colorado Springs on November 23, 2022. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Prosecutors said investigators found a hand-drawn map of the LGBTQ+ club in Aldrich’s apartment with entry and exit points marked, as well as a black binder of training materials titled “How to Deal with an Active Shooter.”
Defense attorneys for Aldrich, who was referred to in state court proceedings as “Mx. Aldrich,” claim their client was under the influence of cocaine and prescription drugs at the time of the attack.
According to the AP, some victims of the shooting and the district attorney who prosecuted Aldrich in state court rejected the claim that Aldrich is nonbinary, calling it an attempt to avoid hate crime charges.
Ashtyn Gamblin, who was working the club’s front door and is still undergoing physical therapy after being shot nine times, told the outlet that a true member of the LGBTQ+ community would not attack its members in a safe haven.
“Coming to a safe place to do this, you’re not part of the community. You just wanted the community to be over,” said Gamblin, who is among the victims expected to give impact statements ahead of Aldrich’s sentencing.
Colorado Club Q accused shooter charged with 305 counts including murder, bias crime and assault
Police have released photos of Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, the suspect in the mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs that left five people dead. (Colorado Springs Police Department)
Although Aldrich identifies as nonbinary, anyone who is a member of a protected group, such as a member of the LGBTQ community, can be charged with a hate crime for targeting peers. Hate crime laws focus on the victim, not the perpetrator.
Prosecutors said Aldrich had been to the club at least eight times before the attack, staying for up to an hour and a half, and returning to shoot at customers.
Just before midnight on November 19, 2022, Aldrich returned wearing a tactical vest with ballistic plates and brandishing an AR-15 rifle. The gunman killed the first man at the club’s entrance, then shot at bartenders and bar patrons before turning toward the dance floor, pausing to reload the rifle’s magazine.
One Navy officer burned his hand while handling Aldrich’s weapon, and another Former army soldier overpowered the attacker The incident continued until police arrived, Fox News Digital previously reported.
Colorado gay nightclub attack suspect expected to get bail
Club Q, the LGBTQ venue that was the site of a deadly shooting in 2022 that left five people dead, is seen Wednesday, June 7, 2023, in Colorado Springs. (AP Photo/Chet Strange)
Aldrich had vowed to become “the next mass murderer” in a vodka-fueled, threatening speech after his grandparents asked him about storing weapons and bomb-making materials. But Aldrich’s family failed to cooperate after his arrest, and prosecutors failed to serve subpoenas to family members, so the charges were eventually dismissed.
A felony conviction in that case would have barred Aldrich from legally purchasing more firearms. But District Attorney Michael Allen said most of the weapons used in the nightclub attack were made from unknown ghost gun components, which do not require background checks to purchase.
Two guns confiscated from the scene of the 2021 incident were not returned to Aldrich at the time of the Club Q shooting, the Associated Press reports.
This image provided by state prosecutors shows surveillance video of Club Q shooting suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich firing a weapon at a Colorado Springs venue on November 19, 2022. (4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office via AP)
Aldrich will be returned to state prison after the hearing, and will face a federal sentence under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which was expanded in 2009 to include crimes motivated by gender identity, sexual orientation and disability.
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Gamblin told The Associated Press she wanted Aldrich to be put to death because many of the victims’ lives have been irreparably changed. She said some friends no longer want to go to programs, while others are struggling to find jobs that involve working with people.
“We wish things could go back to normal, but we know that’s not going to happen,” he told the AP.
